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Astrophysics > High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Title:
Cyclotron absorption lines in the era of Suzaku and NuSTAR

Abstract: Cyclotron resonance scattering features or cyclotron absorption lines are
unique features observed in the hard X-ray spectra of accretion powered X-ray
pulsars with magnetic field of the order of 10$^{12}$ G. Detection of these
features enables us for the direct estimation of strength of the magnetic field
close to the neutron star surface. Corresponding to magnetic field of
$\sim$10$^{12}$ G, the fundamental cyclotron lines are expected in 10-100 keV
energy range with harmonics expected at multiples of fundamental line energy.
However, we detected first harmonic of cyclotron line at less than twice of the
fundamental line energy ($\sim$1.7 times the fundamental line energy) in
Be/X-ray binary pulsar Cep X-4. With the broadband spectral capability of
$Suzaku$ and $NuSTAR$ observatories, we have investigated cyclotron resonance
scattering features in several X-ray pulsars to understand the shape of the
lines, width, magnetic field mapping, anharmonicity in the line energies and
luminosity-dependent properties of cyclotron lines. The results obtained from
these works and new detection of cyclotron line in unknown/poorly studied
sources are presented in this paper.